Chapter 3 - THE WHITE BIRD
Tomas got us out through the rear corridor.
Roman refused an ambulance.
A doctor who apparently made house calls for men like Roman Hail arrived through a private entrance and stitched the cut near Roman's hairline while armed guards searched the grounds.
By four o'clock, Blackridge Estate no longer felt like a mansion.
It felt like a fortress that had discovered the enemy was already inside the walls.
Lily and I were taken to Roman's private library on the second floor.
The windows were thick enough to stop bullets.
The door required both a key and a fingerprint.
Tomas stationed two men outside.
I sat on a leather sofa with Lily asleep across my lap.
She had cried for twenty minutes after the shooting.
Then she'd simply collapsed against me.
Three-year-olds were terrifying that way.
The world could almost kill them, and exhaustion still eventually won.
Roman entered forty minutes later.
His wound had been stitched.
He had changed into a black sweater and dark trousers.
For the first time since the crash, he looked almost normal.
Almost.
He placed a folder on the coffee table.
I didn't touch it.
“What is the white bird?”
Roman remained standing.
“Blue Heron Transport.”
The name meant nothing to me.
I shook my head.
“It's a freight subcontractor.”
“Yours?”
“Not officially.”
That word chilled me.
Roman walked to the fireplace.
“Ten years ago, my uncle used Blue Heron for work nobody wanted attached to Hail Continental.”
“What kind of work?”
His eyes met mine.
“The kind you don't put in company reports.”
I swallowed.
“You mean criminal.”
“I mean my family made money in ways I have spent the better part of a decade trying to stop.”
There was no pride in his voice.
No apology either.
Just fact.
“My father believed fear was cheaper than lawyers. My uncle believed violence was more efficient than negotiation. I inherited companies built by both men.”
“And Felix?”
“Was my father's security chief before he became mine.”
The information settled badly.
“So the man you've trusted to protect this house came from the part of your family you're supposedly trying to bury?”
“Yes.”
“That's insane.”
A faint expression passed across his face.
“You've worked for me fourteen months and that's the first time you've said anything like that.”
“I've never had a bullet come through a window because of you before.”
“Fair.”
He sat across from me.
“What did your husband do for Hail Continental?”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“My husband?”
“Daniel Vale.”
I had never told Roman about Daniel.
Not directly.
Human resources knew I was a widow.
The housekeeping manager knew Lily's father had died.
That was all.
“How do you know his name?”
Roman slid the folder toward me.
I opened it.
The first page contained a photograph.
Daniel.
My Daniel.
Standing in a reflective safety vest beside a refrigerated trailer.
I forgot how to breathe.
He had been thirty-one when he died.
Dark hair.
Crooked smile.
The expression of a man who could turn changing a tire into a comedy routine.
For two years I had trained myself not to look at photographs without warning.
“Where did you get this?”
“He worked for Hail Continental for six years.”
“I know.”
“As a fleet safety analyst.”
“I know.”
“He wasn't just checking tires and brakes.”
I looked up.
Roman's face was grim.
“He was investigating routing fraud.”
My throat tightened.
“No.”
“Mara—”
“No.”
Hearing my name in Roman's voice made me angrier.
Daniel had died in a warehouse accident.
An electrical fire.
That was what I had been told.
That was what the fire marshal's report said.
That was what the company settlement documents said.
That was why Lily and I had received enough insurance money to survive the first year without him.
“You're wrong.”
“I wish I were.”
Roman took another paper from the folder.
“Three months before Daniel died, he reported refrigerated trailers entering Pier Nine with falsified manifests.”
“So?”
“The trailers were supposedly empty.”
“And they weren't?”
“No.”
“What was inside?”
Roman paused.
“Cash. Stolen pharmaceuticals. Unregistered weapons. Whatever Vincent could move.”
“Vincent?”
“My cousin.”
I had seen Vincent Hail twice.
Tall.
Handsome.
Always smiling.
He ran Hail Continental's eastern operations and had a talent for making waitresses blush.
At Blackridge, he acted like Roman's younger brother.
“You're saying your cousin was using your company for smuggling?”
“I believe he still is.”
My hands began to shake.
“Did Daniel know?”
“Yes.”
“And you knew Daniel was investigating him?”
“Not then.”
“Convenient.”
Roman absorbed that.
“I learned after Daniel died.”
I stood so abruptly Lily stirred.
I froze until she settled again.
Then I lowered my voice.
“My husband burned to death in one of your warehouses, and for two years you knew there might have been more to it?”
“I suspected.”
“You suspected?”
“I had no proof.”
“You had money. Investigators. Security. You have people who can probably tell you what color socks the mayor wore yesterday.”
“And Vincent has people too.”
I wanted to hit him.
For a second I understood all those stories about women slapping powerful men in movies.
Instead I clenched my hands.
“What does this have to do with Lily seeing a truck?”
Roman looked at the little red toy car still trapped beneath her arm.
“Maybe everything.”
I followed his eyes.
Daniel had given Lily that car.
Not personally.
She had been fourteen months old when he died, too young to remember much.
The red car had arrived in a box of Daniel's belongings three days after the funeral.
I had almost thrown it away because one wheel was cracked.
Lily had grabbed it.
She had slept with it ever since.
Roman leaned forward.
“Did Daniel ever mention Blue Heron Transport?”
“No.”
“A white bird?”
I started to say no.
Then stopped.
There was a memory.
Small.
Stupid.
Almost meaningless.
Daniel standing in our kitchen two weeks before he died.
His phone ringing.
He looked at the screen and didn't answer.
I asked who it was.
He said nobody.
Then he checked the window.
I had laughed and asked whether the mafia was after him.
He didn't laugh.
Instead he said something I had forgotten completely until that moment.
If you ever see a white heron on a blue truck, Mara, don't be curious. Take Lily and go somewhere crowded.
I slowly sat back down.
Roman saw my face.
“What?”
I told him.
Every word.
Roman went still.
Tomas entered without knocking.
“Sir.”
Roman looked over.
Tomas held a tablet.
“We recovered partial footage from the western traffic camera.”
“Truck?”
“Yes.”
He placed the tablet on the table.
The image was grainy but unmistakable.
A dark-blue box truck.
White heron painted near the rear door.
My stomach turned.
Tomas zoomed in on the driver's window.
The face was impossible to make out.
But the driver's hand was visible on the wheel.
Something silver flashed across his fingers.
Lily's shiny hand.
A ring.
Roman stared at it.
He knew it.
I could tell.
“Whose ring?” I asked.
Roman didn't answer immediately.
“Roman.”
His jaw tightened.
“My father gave three of those rings to three men.”
“Who?”
“One to me.”
He lifted his right hand.
A heavy silver signet ring rested on his little finger.
“One to my cousin Vincent.”
My pulse accelerated.
“And the third?”
Roman looked toward the locked library door.
“Felix Voss.”
At that exact moment, Lily woke.
She rubbed her eyes and whispered, “Mommy?”
I stroked her hair.
“I'm here.”
Her gaze found Roman's hand.
She stared at his ring.
Then her little face changed.
“No.”
Roman froze.
Lily pointed.
“Truck man had that.”
Nobody spoke.
She shook her head urgently.
“But black.”
“What was black?” Roman asked softly.
“The stone.”
Roman's signet held a dark red stone.
Vincent's, I remembered from dinners, was green.
Roman turned toward Tomas.
Tomas was already reaching for his phone.
“What color is Felix's ring?”
Tomas answered without hesitation.
“Black.”
Before Roman could respond, alarms erupted across Blackridge.
A guard shouted outside.
Then another voice roared through the radio.
“Felix Voss is gone!”
Roman stood.
Tomas listened to the radio, then looked at us.
“So is his vehicle.”
I tightened my grip around Lily.
But Tomas wasn't finished.
“And somebody just accessed the staff cottage using Mara's master key.”
My blood went cold.
May you like
Because there was only one thing inside that cottage that Daniel had left me besides photographs, clothes, and memories.
A locked metal box I had never managed to open.
